5th AHF Cup – Sri Lanka gets Silver

The Sri Lankan Men’s Hockey team secured the silver medal at the 5th Asian Hockey Federation Cup going down 3-0 against Bangladesh in the finals that were played at the Kings Park Stadium, Hong Kong yesterday.

The Sri Lankan team who qualified for the finals after their semi-final heist against hosts Hong Kong were defeated by a strong Bangladesh team who took the championship.

It was Jubair Hasan of Bangladesh who drew first blood for the team in the first half and Sri Lanka, despite having many chances at goal, could not equalise. Taking advantage on the 1-0 lead, Bangladeshi player Ashraful Islam fired in the second goal in the 66th minute and six minutes later, the third goal came through the efforts Mohamed Kamurzzman.

With the second goal going in, it was an inevitable that Bangladesh team was going away with the win. Sri Lanka’s unbeaten streak was finally broken as the Bangladeshi team took the 5th AHF Cup title for the year 2016.

With less than a month’s training and prep time, Sri Lanka’s achievement in the international circuit was top notch. With this win Bangladesh have qualified for the Asia Cup next year while Sri Lanka will look to take the positives from the tournament and continue their story in the upcoming tournaments.

Coming in third place were hosts Hong Kong while Singapore took the fourth place honours.

For Sri Lanka, it was Sandaruwan Priyalankara who made it to the top three goal scorers list having scored 5 goals in the tournament. In first and second places were Ashraful Islam and Gaybullo Khaytaboev.